on water and impressions

my first look left me with a drawn-out gasp and widened eyes. I had never seen the ocean so blue. I had never seen the ocean so clear. And I had never seen the ocean so beautiful.

I had no words for the moment, partially due to the fact that I had lost my voice the night before (singing “Dynamite” too loudly). But the overlapping cerulean-turquoise-periwinkle-blueberry blue ~ all melting and foaming and lapping so aesthetically into the white sand ~ bombarded my eyes, crippling both speech and vision for the moment. The sky – although its normal east-coast-US shade – was strikingly vibrant; it flirted with the tropical hues of the water so disgracefully that you couldn’t help but sigh in ecstasy. And snap 37 terrible iPhone shots.

but the water: so lusciously, pleasingly, scrumptiously clear. doesn’t it satisfy some kind of perfectionist hunger inside you when something is perfect? When your eye, already braced for an inevitable disappointment, seeks an imperfection it is sure it will find, and instead is met with perfection itself? It’s the visual equivalent of mouth-watering.

such was my reaction as I soaked in that beach, as I traced and embraced it with every motion of my eyes.

you see such paradises in magazine ads, boasting their brilliant white beaches, and you tend to look on them scornfully as if saying “Who would ever go to that wimpy beach … it doesn’t even have waves! I bet it’s so boring.” and you think with pride of Delaware’s murky waters but undeniably fantastic waves.

but instead all I could do was admire and marvel at this lovely stretch of sand and sea surrounding this lovely little island. how is your moat so bewitchingly clear? why did Neptune bless your waves with such a majestic melange of blues?

day 1 as I lay in my hotel bed and dramatize the events of the day